"Nor Strange It Is" by Frederick Goddard Tuckerman

Soundtrack to this episode

Text of poem:

Nor strange it is, to us who walk in bonds

Of flesh and time, if virtue's self awhile

Gleam dull like sunless ice; whilst graceful guile—

Blood-flecked like hematite or diamonds

With a red inward spark—to reconcile

Beauty and evil seems and corresponds

So well with good that the mind joys to have

Full wider jet and scope nor swings and sleeps

Forever in one cradle wearily:

Like those vast weeds that off d'Acunha's isle

Wash with the surf and flap their mighty fronds

Mournfully to the dipping of the wave,

Yet cannot be disrupted from their deeps

By the whole heave and settle of the sea.

Topics discussed in this episode include:

-That time Italy almost got involved in the Civil War

-Transcendentalism (or not)

-Hawthorne continues to demonstrate his good taste

-Yvor Winters? Witter Bynner? Who names these people? 

-Previous feature N. Scott Momaday

-Nonce sonnets!

-Antinomian ruminations

-Virtue vs. Goodness

-The cradle and the weed

-Poe's "The Narrative of Arthur Gordon Pym"

-Pesky dualities

-Surfing the Tao

Support the show

BUY VERSECRAFT MERCH HERE.

VISIT THE VERSECRAFT SUBSTACK HERE.

Please subscribe, rate, and review! Thanks so much for listening.

You can leave me a tip, support the podcast, or request a commission here!

TikTok: @versecraft
Send me a note at: [e-mail]

My favorite poetry podcasts for:
Sharp thoughts and cutting truths (Matthew): Sleerickets
Lovely introspection and sensitive reflection (Alice): Poetry Says
The landscape of Ohioan poetry (Jeremy): Poetry Spotlight

Supported in part by The Ohio Poetry Association
Art by David Anthony Klug

List of the most common metrical feet:
Iamb: weak-STRONG (u /)
Trochee: STRONG-weak (/ u)
Anapest: weak-weak-STRONG (u u /)
Amphibrach: weak-STRONG-weak (u / u)
Dactyl: STRONG-weak-weak (/ u u)
Cretic: STRONG-weak-STRONG (/ u /)
Pyrrhic: weak-weak (u u)
Spondee: STRONG-STRONG (/ /)